Harley B. Ferguson was born on 14 August 1875 in Waynesville, North Carolina. He was the son of William Burden and Laura Adelaide Reeves Ferguson. On 3 January 1907 he married Mary Virginia McCormack, and they later had 3 children. Ferguson died at the age of 93 after a brief illness. He is buried at the Calvary Cemetery, Lafayette, Louisiana. After attending the Waynesville Schools, Ferguson was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1893. He graduated on 11 June 1897, and was appointed a Second Lieutenant Corps of Engineers, United States Army. In September, 1910 he was appointed a member of a Board of Engineers charged with raising the Battleship Maine, which had been sunk in Havana Harbor before the Spanish-American War. In 1913 he graduated from the Army War College, Washington, D.C., and served until 1917 on Corps of Engineers Civil Works assignments. In 1921 he also graduated from the Army War College in Post War Course. He also worked in France, Pittsburgh, Mississippi, etc. Ferguson was President of the Mississippi River Commission from 1932 until his retirement from the Army in 1939, and had initiated the cut offs and the present plan of flood control. He was sent to Louisiana to solve the problem of flood control. General Ferguson was largely instrumental in harnessing the great river. In Greenville, Mississippi, the lake created was named in his honor. An Act of Congress promoted him to Major General and gave that rank to all future presidents of Mississippi River Commission.